As a 12-year-old boy growing up in Melbourne, Paul Janovskis wanted not only to be a musician, he wanted to be a rebel in the greatest traditions of rock ‘n’ roll.

It was at that unruly age that Janovskis, who performs at the FCC on Saturday, picked up one of his dad’s guitars and started playing regularly. At the same time, he hooked up with some musically inclined neighbors — including Nick Seymour from Crowded House — and began playing in “party bands.”

“So I knew I wanted to be a musician from the age of 12,” Janovskis says.

It was a time when surfing, “misbehaving” and rock ‘n’ roll became major preoccupations in Janovskis’ life.

Janovskis’ parents were a huge influence on his decision to become a musician.

“My father and mother both loved music, so there was a lot of it around our house, and I absorbed all of it. It was a natural thing,” he says.

When the 47-year-old blues musician, who’s originally from Auckland, New Zealand, first decided to become a musician, his father agreed to cover half the costs for his first “dodgy electric guitar,” bass guitar and amplifier, he points out.

“I still use that 1962 Blonde Fender Bassman amp today and would never part with it!”

Janovskis’ first real emotional connection with music came from The Rolling Stones. And the legendary British band’s influence from Black American blues artists had a powerful impact on Janovskis.

“I was drawn to the rebel stance, the non-conformist approach. And of course when I delved deeper I discovered, and took on, many of their influences from Black American music,” he explains.

Australian bands such as AC/DC, Rose Tattoo, the Skyhooks and Cold Chisel also had a strong effect on Janovskis.

“These (bands) were all over the radio and TV at the time in Australia,” he recalls.

At the same time, Janovskis became a big fan of British bands including The Who, Eric Clapton, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, Pink Floyd, The Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin. His musical influences later expanded to American blues and rhythm and blues artists such as Son House, Robert Johnson, Albert King, Muddy Waters and Howling Wolf.

“I love Curtis Mayfield and Bill Withers. I also like reggae, dub, jazz and some country,” Janovskis says.

Janovskis played with various Auzzie bands over the years including Cattletuck and Gas.

Janovskis doesn’t consider himself a “guitar virtuoso” as he describes his guitar style as being “pretty minimal but rhythmic”.

“I tend to focus on the singing end of things and try to deliver a soulful vocal with conviction,” he says.

When Janovskis takes the stage at the FCC, he says he plans to play a solo acoustic act, possibly with a guest performer or two. He will play mainly cover songs, but he says he’ll also play original songs from bands he played in during the 1980s and ’90s.

It’s not the first time Janovskis has been to Cambodia. He was in the country last year when he visited friends in Phnom Penh and Kampot.

“I mainly just relaxed, sat in with players in Phnom Penh a couple of times, spent time in Snooky and Kampot, played music, wrote music and marvelled at the unique character that is Cambodia.”

In a small callout on Page 1 of today’s paper, The Cambodia Daily says its cover price is going up on November 1.

Due to rising paper and printing costs, The Cambodia Daily announces that it will increase the cost of its daily newspaper effective Nov 1 to 45 cents a copy, and the home delivery monthly price will be increased accordingly. We thank our readers for their understanding and trust you will continue to read our newspaper, which is dedicated to publishing all the news without fear or favor.

The current price of The Daily is 30 cents, so percentage-wise, that’s a 50% jump. But considering that the price of nearly everything else in the country has more than double in the last few years, 50% doesn’t look nearly so bad. Furthermore, the price hike amounts to less that $1 per week. That’s a pittance to pay for quality journalism.

The oldest name in sushi in Phnom Penh, Origami flies their fish in from Japan, and has the prices to prove it. Origami is an elegant restaurant with as immaculate-as-you’ll-get-in-Cambodia service. The clientele is made up mostly of Japanese expats, leading me to believe that it’s one of the more authentic restaurants that this crazy town has to offer.

There is still a part two of the article to come, and it will be interesting to see who does and does not make Lina’s list. Noticeably absent so far is Rahu — the current rage in town with half-priced sushi AND saki after 11 p.m. Perhaps it will be the star of the next installment?

Dance party piano man Bun Sambath and his VOP band will play The FCC Phnom Penh on Saturday Oct 8.

Bun Sambath’s story would not be atypical for an American musician.

The lead singer for the Voice of Praise band got his first taste of music playing in the church choir, where he learned piano chords on a dusty electric keyboard. He formed his first band not long after, and went on to study music at university.

These days, some 15 years later, Sambath sits proudly among the capital’s small but hardworking class of professional rock musicians. Since 2004, he has served as the house piano man at Memphis Pub, among the capital’s oldest music venues to cater to foreign ears.

Sambath’s musical tastes have grown, too, far beyond the hymns of his youth.

The influences of his youth, however, remain close, and the current VOP lineup pays tribute to Sambath’s church choir days, with a large group of singers and musicians rounding out the band’s big nine-man lineup.

With such diversity, says the piano man, it’s easy to cater to the capital’s eclectic crowds.

“We play Khmer songs, rock & roll and the twist for Khmer audiences, and we play English songs for foreign audiences,” Sambath explains. “When we play rock & roll or traditional Ramvong Saravan songs, it really makes audiences dance and smile.”

Sambath founded the original incarnation of VOP in 1998, about the same time Memphis first opened its doors in a narrow shop house opposite The Cambodiana Hotel.

“I am the one who had idea to start this band and to lead this band,” he recalls.

A graduate of the Royal University of Fine Arts with a specialization in piano, Sambath is a renowned pianist.

He became a Christian in 1994, a time when he developed some basic piano skills before he began playing in a band at the Church of Christ in 1995. Sambath continued to hone his music skills and his father encouraged him to further develop his talents at RUFA, where he graduated in 2002.

The current VOP lineup dates to 2009. It was around that time that the band began exploring the sounds of the 1960s and covering superstars such as Pan Ron, Sin Sisamut and Ros Sereysothea. And the songs and attitudes of that era continue to shape the band today.

For FCC crowds, VOP should prove a lively musical curveball.

“We wanted to do something different,” says Benjamin Le Grande, a manager at the venue involved in booking music acts. “That was the whole point.”

The band, among others, is more than pleased with the decision.

“We want to play music that shows Cambodian culture to foreign audiences,” Sambath says.

A journey along the Mekong River reveals a plush world of villages surrounded by mangoes, bananas and coconuts, the splendour of the jungle, and rice fields as green as lawns.

Portrayed as Asia’s sleepy backwater of smiling peasants, the Mekong is a creature of extremes.

As author Jon Swain writes in River of Time: “It begins life tamely as a small glacial spring in the Tibetan Himalayas, roof of the world. Then, fed by melting snow and mountain streams, it tumbles down through sheer-sided gorges in southwestern China, twists and turns through the jungly hills of Laos, descends through a series of rapids into Cambodia, then flows, at a more leisurely pace, into southern Vietnam to meander peacefully into the South China Sea below Saigon.”

This serpentine waterway, considered sacred by nomads living on Tibet’s Qinghai plateau, brings life to more than 70 million people across the lands of Indo-China.

It is among the world’s great rivers and, as such, possesses “a special magic,” Swain noted: “There is something about the Mekong which, even years later, makes me want to sit down beside it and watch my whole life go by.”

Following the River

As Cambodia distances itself from its recent past, the nation is once again embracing the river that so stirred the great French explorer Henri Mouhout, who died of jungle fever while exploring its upper reaches in 1861. Of the Mekong, Mouhout had said: “I have so long drunk of its waters, it has so long either cradled me on its bosom or tried my patience — at one time flowing majestically among the mountains, at another muddy and yellow as the Arno at Florence.”

Today on the Mekong Discovery Trail, a 180-kilometer stretch that lies between Cambodia’s Kratie province and the Laos border, very little has changed.

The banks of the river are still lined with the same simple villages surrounded by mangoes, bananas and coconuts; the splendour of the jungle, and rice fields as green as lawns.

The trail represents the very essence of Cambodia, from its exquisite ethnic peoples to an explosion of exotic fauna and flora rivaled only by that of the Amazon.

Discovering the Trail

Increasingly popular with the carbon-footprint-conscious, the Mekong Discovery Trail was launched to conserve its extraordinary natural riches and to help the rural people who live along the river’s banks. Among the poorest in the world, many depend on the Mekong — home to the critically endangered river dolphin — for their livelihoods.

“These are proud, gentle people who live from the river, their gardens, village fields, and nearby forests,” said Dr Thong Khon, Minister of Tourism. “In many ways they have the self-sufficient, community-centred lifestyles that many international tourists are reconsidering in these times of environmental uncertainty.”

Under development since 2007, the Mekong Discovery Trail — a sustainable tourism project backed by the Ministry of Tourism, United Nations World Tourism Organisation and several international NGOs — is a voyage into Cambodia’s history.

The trail spans the provinces of Kratie and Stung Treng, and offers the adventurous a chance to experience delights unique to Khmer life against a backdrop of pre-Angkorian temples in one of the world’s most spectacular biodiversity hot-spots.

Essentially a network of eco-tourism trails, the journey meanders through the heart of the Mekong in a series of river-life adventures.

A Culture Uncovered

The aim is to leave the traveler with a lasting taste of authenticity: life as it has been lived here for a very long time.

Dangle from a houseboat in the flooded forests of the Ramsar wetlands

Buy freshly caught fish from a passing vessel

Meditate to the rhythmic clip-clop of Kratie’s famous horse-carts

Marvel as a rare Mekong river dolphin breaks the surface of the water at Kampi pool

Sampling the local produce is a must.

Kratie prides itself on its krolan, sticky rice mixed with coconut and beans and cooked in bamboo tubes

At night pause for breath at a home-stay, where host families introduce you to the local customs and etiquette, or become a guest at the local pagoda, or wat, and observe the daily rituals of Cambodia’s Buddhist monkhood firsthand.

Embracing the Adventure

The emphasis is on eschewing the package-tour in favour of freer, more independent travel.

The trail unites a network of local people who provide everything from silk-weaving and sunset cruises to white-water rafting and mountain biking. What form your Mekong river-life adventure takes is entirely up to you (all the necessary tools are provided in a one-stop online resource: suggested routes, things to do, who to contact, downloadable maps, etc).

“The location here is good,” he says [of Kampot province]. “It has clay mixed with sand and the talent of the farmers who have learned from their ancestors since the 13th century.”

Clay and sand are not typically associated with nutrient-rich soil. But whatever. Sales are up 10 to 20 percent in Europe, and the Kampot Pepper Farmers’ Association has already sold out of pepper for the year. Perhaps they are on to something.

Dance party piano man Bun Sambath and his VOP band will play The FCC Phnom Penh on Saturday Oct 8, 2011.

Bun Sambath’s story would not be atypical for an American musician.

The lead singer for the Voice of Praise band got his first taste of music playing in the church choir, where he learned piano chords on a dusty electric keyboard. He formed his first band not long after, and went on to study music at university.

These days, some 15 years later, Sambath sits proudly among the capital’s small but hardworking class of professional rock musicians. Read more →

“The location here is good,” he says [of Kampot province]. “It has clay mixed with sand and the talent of the farmers who have learned from their ancestors since the 13th century.”

Clay and sand are not typically associated with nutrient-rich soil. But whatever. Sales are up 10 to 20 percent in Europe, and the Kampot Pepper Farmers’ Association has already sold out of pepper for the year. Perhaps they are on to something.